“It was I made this city we 're in, sir,” said he, proudly. “I built all that mass yonder,--Briggs Block; I built the house we 're sitting in; I built that Apollonicon, the music-hall you saw as you came in, and I lectured there too; and if it were not for an old 'rough' that won't keep off his bitters early of a mornin', I 'd be this day as rich as John Jacob Astor: that's what's ruined me, sir. I brought him from New York with me down here, and there 's nothing from a bird-cage to a steam-boiler that fellow can't make you when he's sober,--ay, and describe it too. If you only heerd him talk! Well, he made a telegraph here, and set two saw-mills a-goin', and made a machine for getting the salt out of that lake yonder, and then took to manufacturing macaroni and gunpowder, and some dye-stuff out of oak bark; and what will you say, stranger, when I tell you that he sold each of these inventions for less than gave him a week's carouse? And now I have him here, under lock and key, waiting till he comes to hisself, which he's rather long about this time.” “Is he ill?” asked Layton. “Well, you can't say exactly he's all right; he gave hisself an ugly gash with a case-knife on the neck, and tried to blow hisself up arter with some combustible stuff, so that he's rather black about the complexion; and then he's always a-screechin' and yellin' for drink, but I go in at times with a heavy whip, and he ain't unreasonable then.” “He's mad, in fact,” said Layton, gravely. “I only wish you and I was as sane, stranger,” said the other. “There ain't that place on the globe old Poll, as we call him, could n't make a livin' in; he's a man as could help a minister with his discourse, or teach a squaw how to work moccasins. I don't know what _your_ trade is, but I 'll be bound he knows something about it _you_ never heerd of.”